“The whole track of the British army is marked with desolation and a wanton distruction of property, particularly through West-Chester county in the state of New-York; the towns of Newark, Elizabeth-town, Woodbridge, Brunswick, Kingston, Princeton and Trenton, in New-Jersey. The fences destroyed, the houses deserted, pulled in pieces or consumed by fire, and the general face of waste and devastation spread over a rich and once well cultivated and well inhabited country, would effect the most unfeeling with melancholy or compassion for the unhappy sufferers, and with indignation and resentment against the barbarous ravagers. It deserves notice, that though there are many instances of rage and vengeance against particular persons, yet the destruction was very general and often undistinguished: those who submitted and took protections, and some were known to favor them, having frequently suffered in the common ruin. Places and things, which from their public nature and general utility, should have been spared by a civilized people, have been destroyed, or plundered, or both. But above all, places of worship, ministers and religious persons of some particular protestant denominations, seem to have been treated with the most rancorous hatred, and at the same time with the highest contempt.” “2. The inhuman treatment of those who were so unhappy as to become prisoners.” “The prisoners, instead of that humane treatment which those who were taken by the United States experienced, were in general treated with the greatest barbarity. Many of them were near four days kept without food altogether. When they received a supply, it was both insufficient in point of quantity, and often of the worst kind. They suffered the utmost distress from cold, nakedness and close confinement. Freemen and men of substance, suffered all that a generous mind could suffer, from the contempt and mockery of British and foreign mercenaries. Multitudes died in prison; and when others were sent out, several died in the boats while carrying ashore, or upon the road attempting to go home. The committee, in the course of their enquiry, learned, that sometimes the common soldiers expressed sympathy with the prisoners, and the foreigners more than the English. But this was seldom or never the case with the officers; nor have they been able to hear of any charitable assitance given them by the inhabitants who remained in, or resorted to the city of New-York; which neglect, if universal, they believe was never known to happen in any similar case, in a christian country.” “3. The savage butchery of those who had submitted and were incapable of resistance.”